Have we become obsessed with fixing our relationships? We consume advice columns, listen to podcasts about communication strategies, and read books promising to decode the mysteries of human connection. We treat relationships like problems waiting to be solved, as if the right technique or insight will finally make everything click into place.

But relationships aren't problems. They're experiences.

The compulsion to "solve" a relationship often stems from discomfort with its natural messiness. When conflict arises, when miscommunication happens, when someone we love disappoints us, our instinct is to reach for a solution. We want a framework, a strategy, a way to ensure it never happens again. We want control over something that is fundamentally uncontrollable: another person's inner world colliding with our own.

This solution-seeking mindset creates a strange paradox. The more we try to perfect our relationships, the less present we become in them. We're so focused on optimising, analysing, and strategising that we forget to simply be with the person in front of us. We miss the small moments—the ones that can't be engineered or replicated.

What does it mean to be in relationship?

Living a relationship means accepting its fundamental uncertainty. It means showing up even when we don't have the right words. It means sitting with discomfort instead of immediately trying to eliminate it. It means recognising that some tensions won't ever fully resolve, and that's not a failure — it's just the reality of two separate people choosing to intertwine their lives.

This doesn't mean we should ignore genuine problems or accept toxic behaviour. There's a difference between living a relationship and merely enduring one. But many of the things we rush to "fix" aren't actually broken. They're just difficult. They require patience, presence, and the willingness to remain engaged even when things feel uncertain.

The most profound relationships aren't the ones where everything runs smoothly but the ones where two people commit to staying present through the awkwardness, the confusion, and the inevitable disappointments. They're the ones where both people understand that the relationship isn't a project to complete, but a continuous act of showing up.

Asking the right questions

So perhaps the question isn't "How do I solve this?" but rather "How do I stay present for this?" The answer won't come from a book or a framework. It comes from the daily, unglamourous practice of living alongside another person — imperfectly, honestly, and without the promise of a perfect ending.

What does "showing up" really mean? It's not grand gestures or perfectly timed interventions. It's answering the phone when we'd rather be alone. It's listening without preparing our rebuttal and needing to win the argument. It's choosing to stay curious about someone even after we think we know everything about them. It's the willingness to be changed by another person, to let them matter enough that their presence reshapes us.

What are we really searching for?

Perhaps what we're really seeking beneath all those solutions isn't perfection at all — it's acceptance. What we want, and what our partners want, is to feel truly accepted: messy thoughts, inconvenient emotions, and all.

We want to know that someone sees us clearly, with all our contradictions and flaws, and chooses us anyway. We want the freedom to be uncertain, to change our minds, to have a bad day without it becoming a referendum on the relationship's viability. And we want to offer that same gift to our partners: the permission to be human, imperfect, and still entirely worthy of love.

The irony is that our obsession with fixing creates the opposite effect. When we're constantly trying to improve or correct our partner, we send the message that who they are right now isn't quite enough. And when we're endlessly optimising ourselves to be the "perfect" partner, we deny them the opportunity to accept us as we actually are.

So how do we live a relationship rather than solve it? We can begin by noticing when we're reaching for control — when we're trying to engineer an outcome rather than experience a moment. We can ask fewer questions that begin with "How do I make them..." and more that begin with "How can I be present for..." We can let go of the fantasy that perfect communication will prevent all misunderstandings.

Above all, living a relationship is a practice, not a destination — one that asks not for perfection, but for our honest, flawed, wholehearted presence, again and again.